Arthur Nielsen
" | image2 = }} "}} Dr. Arthur "Artie" Nielsen, born Arthur Weisfelt, runs Warehouse 13. He serves as its custodian and has been there longer than any other current warehouse agent. Biography Early Life Little is known about Artie's life before he started his career in the warehouse, except that he was an NSA and had a family behind the Iron Curtain. Before working for the Warehouse, he would hunt down and trade artifacts that he found in exchange for getting family members out of the country. He only traded items he didn't think had any value to people there.Hulu.com"Whose Warehouse Is it Anyway." Video clip. (2009) Artie was a cryptographer when he was in his 20s for the National Security Agency. He decoded Soviet communications, and intercepted letters and phone transcripts for them. The NSA felt that he turned because he contacted one of the people they were spying on and started selling secrets to the Soviets. He was never prosecuted though he says he had some unmentioned reason for him to turn. Mrs. Frederic stepped in and "fixed" everything for Artie, clearing his name and his record. Artie claimed he changed his name, so the Soviet government wouldn't be able to find him easily, not because he was trying to hide from the United States government. As Artie Nielsen, he then joined the Secret Service, and later the Warehouse. Warehouse 13 Career 150px|left Artie has dedicated the last 35 years of his life to work in the Warehouse. Mrs. Frederic believes that Artie is the best agent the Warehouse has ever had.In his time at the Warehouse he has had a higher artifact retrieval rate than any other agent. Early in his Warehouse career, Artie was partnered with James MacPherson. At some point during that partnership, he formed a relationship with Carol, with whom James also had a relationship. James disappeared during their partnership and to this day, Carol blames Artie for the disappearance, claiming he was responsible for it. Artie insists she simply chose poorly by choosing James instead of him. As the senior agent or veteran at Warehouse 13, it's part of his job to train new agents and run things at the Warehouse when Mrs. Frederic isn't around. Also, he's Pete and Myka's boss. In Artie's file, it says he has an unconventional training method. At some point in his career, Artie posed as a professor in order to get close to graduate student Joshua Donovan, to help him while he attempted teleportation research using Rheticus' Compass. It was Artie's mission to retrieve the compass. Unfortunately, Artie watched helplessly with Joshua's younger sister, Claudia Donovan, as Joshua disappeared, apparently being killed in an experiment with the compass. Only later was it discovered that Joshua had trapped himself in a inter-dimensional space. This incident caused Artie much grief because he had pushed Joshua to continue the experiment and promised Claudia that he would do whatever he could to help keep him safe. During his career, his old partner, James MacPherson blew up the Umbilicus with Artie still inside, thus killing him. Thankfully though, due to the Phoenix, he was reborn from his ashes, ashes which Pete had the misfortune of choking on. Later on, after MacPherson was killed by Helena Wells, Artie's mind had conjured up MacPherson as a result of Artie not being completely "finished" with their parting. He had gone to James former room (now sealed in the Warehouse) and had found a testament written by James and a pocket watch that he and James had argued about in the past. Later in his career, he had multiple assignments with Claudia, as she was an apprentice under him. Both Artie and Claudia had dealings involving Philo Farnsworth's Three Dimensional Projector, Man Ray's Camera, Max Wertheimer's Zoetrope, and Mata Hari's Stockings. Personality "}} Artie tends towards secrecy. He withholds information about himself and tends to give just enough information to agents for the mission at hand, without answering many of their questions. He obsesses about minutiae to the point of neurosis, and has been known in the past to leap to conclusions based on precious little evidence beyond "gut" instinct.This is evidenced in " " during his conversation in the bar with Carol and again in the bar when he shows Mrs. Frederic the evidence of James MacPherson's presence in the case. She says "Artie, we've both seen you like this before." Artie prefers old-fashioned items and ways of doing things because they are familiar and comfortable, not necessarily because he likes them better. Artie frequently tries to protect the people with whom he's forged relationships, either by making them promises to do so (whether or not he can keep them) or by swearing to potential attackers that he won't allow harm to come to those about whom he cares. While not noticeably a religious man, Artie has studied the Talmud enough to at least be able to quote it. Artie plays the piano. Artie is apparently also adverse to normal technology, he reluctantly allowed a "hack from Global Dynamics" to come to Warehouse 13 and upgrade the ancient computer systems at the request of Claudia. Claudia described to Douglas Fargo that Artie would have "vetoed fire if he'd been born a few years earlier". It was later shown in the series that Artie had a crush on Dr. Vanessa Calder, as noticed by Pete when he was "recovering" from the Telegraph artifact in his previous mission. He likes to think of the Warehouse as "America's attic", and describes his job as being the "gatherer and protector of secrets". He also says that what you have to do when you're on a mission is to "snag it, bag it, and tag it". One of Artie's laws is the worst thing that can happen with an artifact usually happens. Additional Information With the help of "... things," Artie is able to reproduce items, such as a sword, in short periods of time. He likely uses artifacts. Artie has also stated that he also knows how to contact David Bowie, how is unknown. He is a car buff. Artie owns a 1957 Jaguar XJ150 Cabriolet, and a 1969 Chevrolet El Camino. References Nielsen Nielsen Nielsen